"Final Day of Acrylic Workshop"

It was day 2 and the final day of our workshop. Here we all are busy working on our paintings. You can see my pine easel with a carpet on the floor below it just to the right of the photo. Our instructor visited each and every one of us to see if we were doing alright.

Here, our instructor and artist, David Langevin, is demonstrating the application of glazes and veils using acrylic paint and glazing mediums. He applied the glazes in thin layers to the textures on the canvas and eventually building up more and more layers with different colors of paints and glazes until the painting is complete. We had to make sure to write everything down and to observe the process carefully before going back to our easels. Its not that easy to do this proceedure and takes some practice.

Here is the beginning stage of my highly textural painting. Spruce Trees is what we all did.  I went a little overboard on the molding paste but I love the texture I created with it.

Here is the next stage, with some of the glazes on. It looks strange at this point but is suppose to look better as you keep glazeing color on top of color. It's a fairly long process for a canvas this size which is 12"x30".

Kind of the finished product. I say "kind of" because I would have liked more time to work on it. I think I did everything right but I can't say that I really like my work on this painting. I know I could have done better if I had more time to work on it and at my own pace. But we were all there to learn new techniques and not create masterpieces as such, but rather create future ones using David's tips and techniques on glazes. This was a very enjoyable and informative weekend and I am hoping to be able to take more workshops with David in the future.

If you would like to visit David Langevin's website and see all of his beautiful paintings,

 just google David Langevin.com

" Weekend Acrylic Workshop at Leading Edge Workshop and Gallery"

This is day one of a workshop I am taking at Leading Edge Workshops here in Calgary. In this picture we are just setting up. We have a large group of artists in attendance to learn painting techniques from one of Canada's premiere Master artist, David Langevin.

In this photo, David is showing students his techniques in using various painting mediums to show special textural effects such as Tar Gels, Molding Pastes and liquid polymers to use in a painting.

Here, David is demonstrating the use of  transparent glazes and veils, which he uses in all of his paintings. I am enjoying this workshop very much. David is a very knowledgeable and accomplished Artist.

"Banana Trio" 9x12 Colored Pencil Study on Strathmore Pastel Paper

I really like this colored pencil drawing of bananas that I did yesterday. I drew it from life on my drafting table. I bought a new drawing pad from my art supply store and a few new pencils to try out. The paper pad is very nice. The paper has a medium tooth to it and comes in very nice pastel colors, which I think acts as a nice compliment to the colors in the artwork. Because the drawing is still in the pad, the store clerk suggested I place tracing paper on top of it to protect it until I'm ready to use a fixative on it. I think that's a very good idea and one that I haven't thought of before, especially for my pencils which are oil based.

I am feeling more confident now with my pencils and I am already thinking about doing a still life arrangement of fruit on a table as one of my future colored pencil drawings. A big project!  I'll see how that goes.

"Pink Tulips" 11x14 Colored Pencils on Classic Cream Canson Drawing Paper

Here's another colored pencil drawing that I decided to do. Because I am still just practiceing my drawing skills with my colored pencils, I wanted to take on something a little more challenging this time and a little larger image to work with. I found a wonderful book at my public library on floral templates for artists. I tried to follow the image as best I could and changed some of the positions of the leaves and tulips to make the image more my own. The idea here is to just practice layering techniques for the moment until I can achieve a more smoother appearance to the subject. At least I am hoping that it will turn out that way.

"The Perfect Pepper" 8x10.5 Colored Pencil Study on Canson Classic Cream Drawing Paper

One day last week, as I was planning dinner, I asked my husband to go to the grocery store and pick up a pepper. When he returned, he proudly handed me the pepper, calling it "The Perfect Pepper". It did look perfect and I admit I was hard pressed to cut it up because I had visions to paint it instead. Needless to say, I held it back from my dinner plans and the next day I drew it.  It has been a very long time since I picked up my colored pencils again. I wasn't sure if I was going to pull it off. There were some things that I had learned from the past that I had forgotten but at the same time, I realized just how much I enjoyed drawing with them. I think that this was the perfect subject to practise with and I will try to post more drawings in the future. Maybe by then my skills with colored pencils will improve. As for this pepper, it tasted great!

"Brickwork" Abstract 12x12 Acrylic on canvas

This weekend was too nice outside to stay in and paint. The springlike weather I've been craving for, for so long, is truly finally here, and I thought best to spend it outdoors rather than in. But, to start off the month of May, I thought that I would do something very simple to post and I started these two small abstract painting a few days ago. There's not a lot of thought that went into these but rather what colors should I use to make them look pleasing to the eye. As I was looking at my two drawers of paint tubes, I spent a little bit of time looking through them, picking up the paint tubes and reading the colors on the labels. I was looking to find colors that went well together. I chose to use mostly warm colors and added a cool color by way of a bright turquoise to give it a punch of color. Just to give you an idea how I did this, I painted the entire canvas and its sides black. Then I used two plastic putty knives in two different sizes and made bold strokes with lots of thick paint that was added and mixed with molding paste on to the canvas. I then varnished both paintings several times to get a high gloss finish on them. I used the varnish straight from the container, no mixing with water and I noticed it has a glass like finish on it, which is what I like about it. Surprisingly, they are drying relatively fast but still feel tacky to the touch, so it will take a few days to completely dry. These two paintings were a joy to paint and they seem to look good too.